Sorry to threadjack, but how many people had to mispell google to creat that tag? Sorry I had to be the one to point this out, but are sure you weren't one of them?;)
Make that "Lynx"..... (www.lynx.org) which is a 'command line only' browser.
No, I think he meant Links, which is a more advanced text based browser.
Okay, you two better cut it out. This is at least the third time I've heard this exact conversation now, be careful you don't start some kind of weird new meme. These things can catch on and refuse to die. You know, "In Soviet Russia, GNAA pours hot grits down our naked and petrified overlord's pants..." Just be careful, please.
The GUI is still absolutely awful, though. No kidding. With everything they did right (better CSS, tabs, phishing filter, etc.), they went and violated just about every GUI standard they've ever taken the time to document in MSDN. The last person I need skinning* apps is my OS vendor, thank you very much.
* I know it's technically not skinning in IE7, just a polished interface. Nevertheless, it's a non-standard GUI coming from the people who establish the GUI standards for the platform.
Minimising use of Javascript. If Javascript doesn't provide a significant obvious benefit to the user interface, it doesn't get used. Right on. Furthering that, if it won't degrade nicely, leave it out instead of putting a "this site requires JavaScript", and many sites don't even bother with that message anymore. Nothing infuriates me more than requiring client-side code to generate somebody else's content. If I have to enable scripting to see somebody's page, I probably don't want to see it.
Perfect example is slashdot - if I don't have scripting enabled, I can still read and even participate without ever running a script on my side. I can't use all of the features like tags or the new commenting system, but the site still works. Try visiting reading a multipage article on Reuters.com without scripting enabled, you won't make it past the first page of any article.
With easily 50% of the replies to this story in favor of Microsoft and their standards compliance (never thought I'd say that), I feel it's safe to announce that Hell has, in fact, frozen over.
If you're a smart user, you won't disable UAC. You'll recognize that there's value in having control over what runs on your computer.
I bet most slashdotters aren't even aware of DEP or using Run As to actually take away rights from a process in XP, so if a bunch IT geeks like/. don't know how to keep XP secure, then neither will users. XP has its share of security problems, but by and large the majority of them are caused by ignorance. The only way to really combat ignorance is to remind them "This is dangerous!" every time they do something risky. I would rather Vista err on the side of caution w/ UAC. The time lost clicking "Allow" all the time is less than the time lost having to restore a compromised machine.
As for the rest of your comment, I agree completely. Cheers.
I mean why is it even "optional"? I cannot even think of a reason why ANY website would need access to my clipboard stuff, under any circumstances! http://docs.google.com/
The guy may not be able to play the piano, but he certainly knows music.
That's the impression I got, and without too much effort I found another video of him improvising on keyboard (I'll try to find the URL, but it's also on YouTube). He may not be great, but he certainly knows what he's doing. As you pointed out, anybody using CPP progressions has almost certainly learned music in a college/university setting. My wife plays percussion (including some piano), and she noticed that he held the drumsticks correctly and that he curled his fingers correctly at the piano. He might not have played the song, and perhaps he doesn't even play well live, but he is certainly not an amateur.
And artist would be better off to publish it themselves, say an advert attached to a mp4 and distribute it for free. The advertisers would pay them more and no overhead and less risk. Maybe Google might be interested....
That is actually a killer idea, and it's worked for television so far. I just wonder how one could make it work for digital audio? Well, I haven't visited Napster in a while, isn't that how they were going to do it? Another option I've come across is http://cdbaby.com/. They only print liners & press CDs when a customer actually orders one, so you only have to sell a few CDs to break even (e.g., a $15 CD will break even at just 6 sales). They also distribute downloads through iTunes, Yahoo!, Rhapsody, Napster, etc., so I may end up trying them out one day...
Anyway, brilliant idea about ad-driven music distribution. I hope Google, Napster, and pals are listening! Cheers.
Just speculation, but isn't there suppsed to be a new Wii controller in the works, similar to the power glove? That might be even easier on the hands than the mote.
Religion IS the reason why poor people vote for Republicans against their own self interests. The Republicans do nothing to help the poor and much that hurts the poor. The only reason for poor people to vote for Republicans is that the Republican party has been taken over by the Christian Right.
You'd think that, wouldn't you? Read this and then get back to me.
High prices could be a good thing. To average Joe, Windows is simply a part of the computer, and he doesn't think about it. But to the manufacturers, this will represent a place where they can cut prices.
Not likely. The terms of the agreement between MS and the OEMs almost certainly includes a mandatory OS charge per unit sold, regardless of whether the user accepts MS's EULA or even whether the equipment ships with an alternate OS installed.
Not shipping Windows, and with OSs like Ubuntu becoming so good nowadays, there is a real alternative: even for average Joe.
Not really. Everybody uses Windows because everybody else uses Windows.
Dell gave a refund for an unused copy of Windows the other week and I think this is just that start of things to come.
That's news to me (and encouraging news at that). Regretably, "a refund" leads me to think that it wasn't a policy decision but just a customer service decision for a single customer that resulted in a net loss for Dell (equal to their cost of a single OEM license of Windows). I hope I'm wrong though.
I actually don't think much needs to be done to break the Microsoft monopoly
I agree with you here. This was a smart move by MS. Forcing users to pay for features they don't use is what an evil monopoly does. Forcing users to pay only for necessary features (just enough to run your apps and interface with your devices) and making all other features optional is a show of good faith on their part.
Unlike when the first Anti-trust law was going on, there is now a real choice of operating system. (It's so cliché but) next year could be the big year of Linux.
Unfortunately, I don't see that happening next year, but you might still be right. The only thing that will get Linux onto home desktops is when users can run their Windows apps natively in Linux. Since it is unlikely the entire IT industry will move to Java and that MS will bundle Sun's VM in their OS, the only other alternative is for the Linux community to adopt a platform that will allow them to run a large number of Windows apps natively. This would be.NET, which makes this story unbelievably good news in that respect.
I really wish that someone would stop the f------ smear campaigns and instead clearly list what they intend to do. If they ran before, I want someone (obviously the campaigns website won't) to list exactly what they said they were going to do and exactly what they did do so I can compare.
That's okay. You don't need to be 100% informed. The better informed you are, the better for all of us, but just do your part and vote how you want to. That's the most important part. In fact, the more people vote, the better democracy works. Not just ideology, either, there's a scientific basis to it. A collective of members each making independent decisions is smarter than any individual member in the group. And collective intelligence fails when the members decide to just do whatever a perceived leader wants to do (because it's really just acting the same as the one member, who is not as smart as the whole).
So there you go. You want a smarter government? Higher voter turnout engenders better government. Even if you can't independently figure out whether a candidate's a slimeball or not, the hive mind can. Or at least does a better job at it than you. And it (the hive mind) needs as many drones as it can get. As more people turn out, we eventually get better at picking the best public servants. Better public servants on the Hill mean a smarter Collective Legislator, and it's the public that wins. If you're dissatisfied with the quality of our elected officials, the worst thing you can do is stay home on Election Day!
See Collective Intelligence wiki to start you off. There was a Slashdot article on it too, but I can't find it now, about how a crowd of average people was able to collectively guess the weight of livestock more accurately than any of the agricultural professionals present could individually.
Everyone who goes to the movies knows that global warming causes the planet to freeze over.
Hmm. I must've missed each and every one of those movies. Yes, global warming causes some localized cooling. Unfortunately, you're missing the key ingredient of polar ice caps to melt... No ice caps to melt, no lowering of localized temp due to global warming. Just a raising of the temp everywhere.
For your viewing displeasure: The Day After Tomorrow (2004). IMDB plot summary: "A climatologist tries to figure out a way to save the world from abrupt global warming. He must get to his young son in New York, which is being taken over by a new ice age." Yes, global warming is responsible for record low temperatures too. Makes me think maybe Michael Crichton is on to something.
Better make sure the person is a "non-citizen" before you start swinging that hammer. They're the ones with no rights, you can do what you want to them. Otherwise you might get into trouble.
That's one thing that drives me so crazy about people who talk about how illegal immigration doesn't hurt anybody, when it in fact it just sets up the illegal immigrants as a lower class. Maybe law-abiding citizens won't hurt them, but here in Houston, criminals have figured out that because illegal immigrants can't open bank accounts, they carry large sums of cash (on Fridays), and because they're here illegally, they won't call the police to report a crime. So in reality they are only marginally less exploited than they would have been if they just stayed in Mexico or El Salvador (the two countries from which the majority of illegal immigrants in Houston come).
Of course, the next step would be defining exactly what is meant by a "citizen". Lets get that sucker narrowed down shall we? Open up what we can do to those damn annoying "non-citizens". Hell, let's stop pussyfooting around, just call them "non-persons" and be done with it.
I've worked with CBP (not for, and not closely, but close enough), and exactly what is meant by "citizen" is very well defined, and it is a pretty obvious definition. If you're having any difficulty with the difference between the words "citizen" and "person", I can only suggest you pick up a copy of 1984 and pay attention to the parts about Newspeak.
To see how difficult it would be to follow the tax code, I pulled up the whole thing (26 USC) in PDF form from Congress's website. It turns out Title 26 is longer than the the Koran, the New Oxford Annotated Bible, and Tolstoy's War and Peace... put together*.
* In case you're wondering, War & Peace ~1,400 pages, the New Oxford Annotated Bible ~1,800, the Koran ~500 pages.
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Sorry to threadjack, but how many people had to mispell google to creat that tag? Sorry I had to be the one to point this out, but are sure you weren't one of them?
Um, no, I think he meant links.
No, I think he meant Links, which is a more advanced text based browser.
Okay, you two better cut it out. This is at least the third time I've heard this exact conversation now, be careful you don't start some kind of weird new meme. These things can catch on and refuse to die. You know, "In Soviet Russia, GNAA pours hot grits down our naked and petrified overlord's pants..." Just be careful, please.* I know it's technically not skinning in IE7, just a polished interface. Nevertheless, it's a non-standard GUI coming from the people who establish the GUI standards for the platform.
Perfect example is slashdot - if I don't have scripting enabled, I can still read and even participate without ever running a script on my side. I can't use all of the features like tags or the new commenting system, but the site still works. Try visiting reading a multipage article on Reuters.com without scripting enabled, you won't make it past the first page of any article.
With easily 50% of the replies to this story in favor of Microsoft and their standards compliance (never thought I'd say that), I feel it's safe to announce that Hell has, in fact, frozen over.
I bet most slashdotters aren't even aware of DEP or using Run As to actually take away rights from a process in XP, so if a bunch IT geeks like /. don't know how to keep XP secure, then neither will users. XP has its share of security problems, but by and large the majority of them are caused by ignorance. The only way to really combat ignorance is to remind them "This is dangerous!" every time they do something risky. I would rather Vista err on the side of caution w/ UAC. The time lost clicking "Allow" all the time is less than the time lost having to restore a compromised machine.
As for the rest of your comment, I agree completely. Cheers.
Wait... I always assumed the Yakov Smirnoff jokes came to Slashdot from Futurama in the first place.
[Fry and Leela stand beneath a giant ice dispenser.]Fry: In Soviet Russia, the ice crushes you! Yakov Smirnoff said it...
Leela: No, he didn't.
This trivia contest is over!
:)
Cheers.
I bet on one of those TVs, you couldn't even see my obscene tattoo...
That's the impression I got, and without too much effort I found another video of him improvising on keyboard (I'll try to find the URL, but it's also on YouTube). He may not be great, but he certainly knows what he's doing. As you pointed out, anybody using CPP progressions has almost certainly learned music in a college/university setting. My wife plays percussion (including some piano), and she noticed that he held the drumsticks correctly and that he curled his fingers correctly at the piano. He might not have played the song, and perhaps he doesn't even play well live, but he is certainly not an amateur.
That is actually a killer idea, and it's worked for television so far. I just wonder how one could make it work for digital audio? Well, I haven't visited Napster in a while, isn't that how they were going to do it? Another option I've come across is http://cdbaby.com/. They only print liners & press CDs when a customer actually orders one, so you only have to sell a few CDs to break even (e.g., a $15 CD will break even at just 6 sales). They also distribute downloads through iTunes, Yahoo!, Rhapsody, Napster, etc., so I may end up trying them out one day...
Anyway, brilliant idea about ad-driven music distribution. I hope Google, Napster, and pals are listening! Cheers.
...and removed (though not by me). For those interested, the diff is here.
Just speculation, but isn't there suppsed to be a new Wii controller in the works, similar to the power glove? That might be even easier on the hands than the mote.
You'd think that, wouldn't you? Read this and then get back to me.
Not likely. The terms of the agreement between MS and the OEMs almost certainly includes a mandatory OS charge per unit sold, regardless of whether the user accepts MS's EULA or even whether the equipment ships with an alternate OS installed.
Not really. Everybody uses Windows because everybody else uses Windows.
That's news to me (and encouraging news at that). Regretably, "a refund" leads me to think that it wasn't a policy decision but just a customer service decision for a single customer that resulted in a net loss for Dell (equal to their cost of a single OEM license of Windows). I hope I'm wrong though.
I agree with you here. This was a smart move by MS. Forcing users to pay for features they don't use is what an evil monopoly does. Forcing users to pay only for necessary features (just enough to run your apps and interface with your devices) and making all other features optional is a show of good faith on their part.
Unfortunately, I don't see that happening next year, but you might still be right. The only thing that will get Linux onto home desktops is when users can run their Windows apps natively in Linux. Since it is unlikely the entire IT industry will move to Java and that MS will bundle Sun's VM in their OS, the only other alternative is for the Linux community to adopt a platform that will allow them to run a large number of Windows apps natively. This would be .NET, which makes this story unbelievably good news in that respect.
That's okay. You don't need to be 100% informed. The better informed you are, the better for all of us, but just do your part and vote how you want to. That's the most important part. In fact, the more people vote, the better democracy works. Not just ideology, either, there's a scientific basis to it. A collective of members each making independent decisions is smarter than any individual member in the group. And collective intelligence fails when the members decide to just do whatever a perceived leader wants to do (because it's really just acting the same as the one member, who is not as smart as the whole).
So there you go. You want a smarter government? Higher voter turnout engenders better government. Even if you can't independently figure out whether a candidate's a slimeball or not, the hive mind can. Or at least does a better job at it than you. And it (the hive mind) needs as many drones as it can get. As more people turn out, we eventually get better at picking the best public servants. Better public servants on the Hill mean a smarter Collective Legislator, and it's the public that wins. If you're dissatisfied with the quality of our elected officials, the worst thing you can do is stay home on Election Day!
See Collective Intelligence wiki to start you off. There was a Slashdot article on it too, but I can't find it now, about how a crowd of average people was able to collectively guess the weight of livestock more accurately than any of the agricultural professionals present could individually.
Resistance is futile. ;)
That's one thing that drives me so crazy about people who talk about how illegal immigration doesn't hurt anybody, when it in fact it just sets up the illegal immigrants as a lower class. Maybe law-abiding citizens won't hurt them, but here in Houston, criminals have figured out that because illegal immigrants can't open bank accounts, they carry large sums of cash (on Fridays), and because they're here illegally, they won't call the police to report a crime. So in reality they are only marginally less exploited than they would have been if they just stayed in Mexico or El Salvador (the two countries from which the majority of illegal immigrants in Houston come).
I've worked with CBP (not for, and not closely, but close enough), and exactly what is meant by "citizen" is very well defined, and it is a pretty obvious definition. If you're having any difficulty with the difference between the words "citizen" and "person", I can only suggest you pick up a copy of 1984 and pay attention to the parts about Newspeak.
You know, hydrophobia might explain a lot.
To see how difficult it would be to follow the tax code, I pulled up the whole thing (26 USC) in PDF form from Congress's website. It turns out Title 26 is longer than the the Koran, the New Oxford Annotated Bible, and Tolstoy's War and Peace ... put together*.
* In case you're wondering, War & Peace ~1,400 pages, the New Oxford Annotated Bible ~1,800, the Koran ~500 pages.